1503951200

by Camille Griep

  “Syd Turner has always been destined for something other than me.” He shook his head. “Even if she’s on the level, she was never going to be mine. She was never going to love me like I loved her.”

  “Not if you treat her like this. I’m sorry, Troy, but you’re wrong.”

  “I can see you over there, Cas. Judging me. Like you know anything about anything. Like you’re some big relationship expert.”

  He was just like our mother, tabulating faults when it suited them. “Maybe I don’t know anything about romance,” I said. “But I do know about love. And I know a whole lot more about friendship. And you know what? You’re a sorry bastard at both.”

  Troy scuffed chaff beneath his boot. “Don’t think I don’t know where you’re going.”

  I put a knee in Windy’s middle to make her exhale, and tightened the girth. “I love my friend, and I’m going to go make sure she’s okay.”

  “It’s dangerous,” he said.

  All the simmering acrimony of the day came to a full boil. “I don’t care if it’s dangerous. Life is dangerous. Love is dangerous.”

  He met my eyes. He’d finally heard me. “But that love is just too much to ask for your family, isn’t it?”

  “I think I’d rather take my chances on someone who might love me back.”

  “I could call the guards.”

  “You make the choice that’s best for you.”

  I grabbed a Governor’s Office courier bag from the tack room and slung it over my shoulder. I didn’t think the gate guards were going to ask questions, especially with the Survivors back at camp and the excitement of the day past. At the gate, I told the man on duty that I was heading to Klein. He didn’t seem to recognize me or particularly care.

  I relaxed, letting Windy guide us over the moonlit trail. I was just descending the last small hillock before the clearing when I heard hoofbeats. I pulled the reins gently and stopped there, paralyzed, unsure of which direction the horse was coming from. Before I could calm down enough to plead with the Spirit for my safety, Troy galloped into the clearing behind me.

  Even though part of me had wanted him to change his mind and come with me, his presence made me uneasy. “What changed your mind?” I asked quietly.

  He was still speaking as if in some internal monologue. “I wanted to make sure I made the right decision.”

  “And if you didn’t?”

  “If I’m wrong, I guess I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to her.”

  We rode in silence, his foul mood descending over us like a cloud. Making a large circle around the Survivor camp, we listened intently. We heard no screams, no sounds of torture or pain. We stumbled upon a makeshift corral with several horses inside. With the help of the moon, I could see the Turner Ranch freeze brand near the manes of a few of the darker animals. Thankfully Troy had been too busy trying to see into the camp to study the horses, but there it was: Cal had indeed helped the Survivors. The only question left was why, though I wasn’t sure it mattered much anymore. Cal had almost certainly realized, as Syd and I had, that taking sides was the quickest path to ruin.

  “We should go,” I said, reining Windy back toward the other side of the clearing. “I don’t think there’s anything more to see here.”

  “You wanted to come. You wanted to see Syd. So let’s see Syd already.”

  I sighed. There would be no winning here.

  We slowly approached a thin wall of Douglas fir between us and the camp. Through the trees, we could see Syd sitting at a table near a cooking fire with five or six men, in turns frustrated and animated. Speaking or explaining or pleading. We couldn’t hear much over the roar of the Basalt and the crack of their fire. A giant man seemed to put an end to their talking, and Syd sat, looking in turns pensive and satisfied.

  “Look how comfortable she is,” he said. “What if she’s been their ally the whole time?”

  I didn’t see comfort in Syd’s posture, just the overenergetic assertion she maintained when she was in unfamiliar situations. The same as she’d used on Becky the first day of Vocational Retraining. I shook my head. “Wrong.”

  “But you can’t say for sure she hasn’t been working with them?”

  I wanted to say yes. Yes, because Syd told me so. But I knew Troy wasn’t going to listen. And there was a very small and terrible part of me that saw what he saw. She had shut the power off. She had lived in the City. She had asked to stop here when we brought her into New Charity that first night. It all looked bad.

  I recognized a handsome man as the Survivor the Deacon had attacked. He sat down beside Syd and put his good arm—his other arm was in a sling—around her in a jovial hug. I felt Troy bristle beside me.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I murmured. Through the trees, Syd smiled her most sincere smile, the one I’d only seen really in the last couple of days.

  “She’s not even upset that he hurt the Deacon,” Troy growled. “Her own flesh and blood.” Troy was at the sort of simmering burn I’d only seen a handful of times in my life, times when he was most like my mother. He was going to turn anything Syd did into a charge against her.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Shh,” he said. “I’m trying to listen.”

  I prayed to the Spirit to send Syd a message. Whatever you do, don’t do anything. It didn’t work. Transfixed, I watched Syd smile again. The handsome man hesitated for a moment, then brushed his hand over her hair. And then she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  Troy’s face was anguish. “Still going to defend her now?”

  “That exchange could have been a thousand different things,” I said softly.

  He covered his ears with his hands. “What about my heart, Cas?”

  “Troy, wait. Please be careful.”

  “Forget her. Forget you.” He picked up his reins, resting on the pommel, and yanked the horse back into a large, low-hanging branch. A heavy crack sounded in the stillness.

  On the other side of the trees, the men scrambled from their seats. One threw Syd to the ground, which didn’t even garner a glance from the man Troy believed to be her paramour. Whistles pierced the night air followed by the flurry of shotguns. All of a sudden there was sound and smoke and more smoke. I reined Windy north, closed my eyes, and kicked her into a gallop. The Bishop had been right on one account: the Spirit appeared to have completely forsaken me.

  My ears were still ringing when I dragged myself up the stairs to the apartment. I’d taken Windy back home, expecting to have it out with Troy, who’d been right behind me when we came through the town gate, but he’d broken from the trail some ways back. Part of me was grateful and yet another mourned. How could he see the worst in Syd’s intent when he had no context? And yet, he was so sure of her transgressions, he put all three of our lives in danger, assuring the very outcome he feared: her rejection.

  Syd seemed safe enough in the interim, at least, which made me hopeful for a good sleep. I put the kettle on and lit some candles, in case Len came back later and needed to see his way to his room. They weren’t nearly as beautiful as the ones Syd had brought from the City, but this way I didn’t have to run the noisy generator. It turned out I liked the quiet. I carried the last candle into the living room and set it on the table.

  “Well now, that’s lovely,” said the Bishop. I nearly jumped through the window.

  “What are you doing here?”

  The Bishop’s smile was strange, and unconnected to his eyes. “Waiting for you.”

  “Len will be back soon,” I said, hoping I was right and that our time alone would be short. “Did you need us for a vision?” I asked, knowing full well he didn’t.

  He ignored the question, still looking out over the darkened town. “How does Ms. Turner fare?”

  “She seemed fine,” I said, not bothering to lie again, by omission or otherwise. “I didn’t speak to her, just saw her.”

  “Making fast friends, no doubt,” he said.

&n
bsp; I tried to keep the frown from my face.

  “You think I don’t understand how people like her operate. But I have been around a long, long time. And people are who they are, even if they don’t mean to be. It was people like Syd who lured my daughter into the City and turned her into something common, something the Spirit would no longer save. Just one in a world full of people worth nothing at all.”

  “That’s not the kind of world I believe in.” I wanted to say it wasn’t the way I was raised, but I wasn’t sure anymore if my father’s corruption was inherent or accidental.

  “I can understand the desire to be somewhere safe. Somewhere familiar,” he said, following my gaze. “You’ve lost your parents, and now Syd. You can’t even convince your own brother of what you know to be true about Ms. Turner, and the grace of the Spirit that once came so easily is missing. You don’t have very much left to lose now, do you?”

  He’d looked back on my night. He’d been looking back on it since I’d arrived in the room. “You’d waste your Hindsight on this? Things I would have simply told you?”

  “Your words mean very little to me anymore, Casandra.” The Bishop’s quiet, seething rage was so much worse than his outburst. I knew how to handle anger, but I wasn’t sure what to do with this. “They mean little to anyone.”

  “I’m not frightened of you,” I said. Though it was a lie, it was one I intended to turn into a truth. Syd had once lost everything and persevered to find it all again. I would do the same. I might not have much, but I’d make a life from it, searching until I found happiness. For myself. For New Charity.

  “You force my hand, Casandra. It is a shame you forfeit what is left in such a cavalier way.”

  My heart stopped, and skipped ahead in butterfly beats. “What do you mean, what is left? You’ve taken my parents and my friend and my voice.”

  “As a kindness to you, I will see to it your brother does not suffer.”

  I had made a mistake of calculation: I had very little left, which was much different than nothing. I couldn’t lose Len. Anything but Len. “No. You can’t.”

  “Then you’ll reconsider my offer of marriage?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe I need more time.”

  When he laughed, his face remained unchanged. “Time is a resource in short supply.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nelle says she will have the software written to restore the power in two days’ time. And that is why we’ll be having a celebration, inviting the leaders of the Survivor camp to join in our good fortune and cooperation. That is the day I prefer to be wed.”

  “Why that day?”

  “Because that is also the day I will, as they say, remove the Survivors from the equation.”

  “You’re going to throw a diplomatic party, then murder the guests? You can’t really expect Dr. Mangold to come inside completely unprepared.”

  “Love is blindness, my dear. Dr. Mangold seems to be willing to do just about anything to ensure Nelle returns to his side. And it won’t be murder. When Nelle restores the power, you know as well as I do she won’t be able to keep her hands off the floodgate. At that time, we’ll simply be defending our property.”

  “You can’t just keep racking up bodies like this.”

  “New Charity has been my life’s work,” the Bishop said. “But I will wipe it off the map if I must. And if I must, I would, of course, prefer if you came with me.”

  “Came with you where?”

  “Wherever we decide to start anew.”

  I tried to suppress a shudder. “I need time to think.”

  “I’ll lift the curse on your voice in the morning, Casandra, when I will have your answer.” He turned and disappeared into the darkness of the kitchen. “But know: if you refuse, there will be consequences.”

  I pressed myself against the cold of the windowpane, my blood pounding hot in my ears. No matter what I chose, people I loved would die. I had wanted so badly to be more than just a voice to New Charity. Instead, I had turned into the voice of lament, a maddened prophetess, a harbinger of my own doom.

  It seemed like hours later when Len tiptoed into the apartment. “Over here,” I called from the windows, still pressed up against them.

  “Your voice,” he said. “It’s like I can’t hear you.”

  I tried talking louder still, looking into his eyes. Len. My brother. A man. Half of me, half of my life, half of my heart. “He’ll hurt you,” I said, the tears starting afresh. And still I needed his help more than ever.

  “I don’t understand.”

  I took a few deep breaths, and my head began to clear. I took Len’s hand and forced us into a vision of the day ahead.

  We are walking up the two track dressed in black. Len is warning Perry of the Bishop’s threat on Nelle’s life, since I cannot, not with my own ruined voice. We are slipping into my father’s office to retrieve Cal’s gun and give it to Sheriff Jayne. I am handing Jayne the gun in the hopes she’ll know what it all means. I am standing in front of Len, asking him to help me. I am asking him despite my wanting to tell him to run far and fast. Despite what it might cost.

  He let go of my hand, breaking the vision. “Let’s go.”

  Len had logged countless nights sneaking into the mansion without waking guards, stepping on noisy floorboards, or tipping over houseplants. And while I once held the belief that his delinquency was a problem, I had never been more thankful to Al Truax and his card-playing friends for teaching Len what I once believed to be bad habits. Maybe they had taken Len away from me, but they’d also kept him alive. Being a part of their extended group of rebels gave him an identity outside of being a Willis, outside of being an Acolyte, outside of being my twin. Sometimes those identities were annoyances, but more often they kept Len from the darkest recesses, places he would have done anything to quiet, including silencing them forever.

  We entered the mansion through a back door in the greenhouse. Len explained that though it required extra dexterity, due to the precarious nature of the plants, it was unguarded and the full moon would light our way. The worst part ended up being the putrid smell of overripe lilies, the detritus of another of my mother’s temporary fixations. One minute it was loganberries, the next week Canadian geese, a month later embroidery.

  Once upon a time I remember us riding out as a family, picnicking on the top of some arid, velvety bluff, watching the birds catch the warm currents as the afternoon sun sank in the sky. My parents had once been real, been more, been something different. His smile had been genuine; her eyes like the flames she once possessed as a gift, all at once bright and soft. Len and I had simply been children. I won’t say things were perfect. Perry was already gone. The Bishop already moving in. And yet, I remembered.

  Len flicked my arm, hard, like he did when we were kids and I’d been daydreaming. He pointed to the maid’s staircase, narrow and steep, and we made our way down. I stepped where he stepped, and we made it down without more than a few creaks. Amita poked her head out from her quarters but Len smiled and she flopped a piece of mending at him while I hid behind, pretending to be someone else who didn’t belong in the house.

  At the doorway to my father’s office, Len left me and continued on to the secure guest rooms one floor down. It was likely Perry was there, in close proximity to Nelle. I checked my watch. We’d agreed to complete our tasks in ten minutes or less, and rendezvous at the greenhouse.

  The large oak desk that belonged to my father was unsurprisingly locked. But odds were he’d kept the key somewhere convenient. It took precious minutes from my timetable, but I found the key on the bottom of his brass horse paperweight.

  The gun was nestled deep in the center drawer beneath Syd’s blue bandana, amid pens and pencils, notepads, an eyeglass kit, the leavings of an otherwise unremarkable desk. Nothing inside helped me understand who my father had become or his ability to let me go.

  I didn’t hear the footsteps until they were almost to the door. I grab
bed the gun and ducked underneath the desk. If someone merely glanced in from the door, I’d be fine. If not, there wasn’t much cover.

  Hissing voices wafted into the room, and I sat up a bit to see who they belonged to. Perry stood with his back to me while Len tried to calm him down.

  The Bishop’s vision filtered back into my mind. The gun. It was the same one that had been on the coffee table the day Cal died. Why had it been there? Why hadn’t he used it? Mindlessly, I ran my thumb over the grip and felt one of the screws raised. I opened three of the screws with my nail and slid the grip aside.

  “You need to listen to me,” Len was saying. “Nelle is in danger. Maybe you, too. You have to find a way to get her out of here.”

  “You’ve always wanted me out of the way,” Perry said. “All of you.”

  The piece of paper fell into my lap. I opened and scanned it, sliding it into my pocket. The gun barely mattered; it had never mattered. We had exactly what we needed to take to Jayne.

  But the gun was still in my hand. If I stood up with it, Perry wouldn’t hesitate to sound the alarm. If Syd still wanted the weapon, we’d have to come back when this was all over. I reached up and slid the drawer open, quietly setting the gun inside.

  “You delusional moron,” Len said. “We weren’t even walking yet when they sent you away. Go ahead and be angry, Perry, but not at us. We’re only trying to protect you. And Nelle.”

  “You’re trying to take her away from me.”

  Len raked his hair into opposing directions. “What the hell is your problem, Per? Stop this and listen.”

  “Nelle and I are going to marry. Then it won’t matter who her enemies are. Father will protect her.”

  “You can’t protect her from the Bishop.” Len’s voice was too loud. “No one can.”

  I was having trouble getting the drawer relocked. As soon as I finally had it, the key dropped from my hand onto the hardwood floor. Len sighed.

  Perry whipped around, peering over the desk chair. “Casandra? What are you doing under there? You’re not even supposed to be here.”